Captain James Cook’s HMS Endeavour is believed to have sunk in Newport Harbor during the American Revolution.
As an historical link between Australia and the city of Newport, presenter Glenn Shorrock talks about the wreck of the Endeavour in this scene and presents what was then (1983) believed to be surviving wood from the wreck, including a small fragment that traveled to the moon on Apollo 15 (whose Command Module was also called Endeavour.)
However, as there has been some controversy in recent years about which shipwreck in Newport Harbor is actually the Endeavour, it is possible the space-flown fragment Shorrock is holding here (and another fragment flown on the Space Shuttle Endeavour in 1992) may have come from the wrong ship. Maybe.
Shorrock quotes an alternative story of Endeavour’s loss, saying that it instead sunk off Newport in the 1790s is, having been renamed Liberté by a French owner. This account is less-supported by the historical evidence and may instead refer to another HMS Endeavour or to another of Cook’s ships, the Resolution. However, given the coincidence of Australia II’s opponent in 1983 being named Liberty, this probably made a better story for the producers.
Certainly it must have been compelling for mid-20th-century Australian and British America’s Cup challengers to imagine their J-Classes or 12-Metres were sailing over the wreck of the Endeavour, just as it must have been for the astronauts to think they had fragments of the right ship. But until we identify its wreck for sure, perhaps imagining is all we can do…